16 January 2014

Fiscal Reality from One of the country’s most informed economists1486_ 1/16/14 - For a little shot of reality, we are talking with Alan Beaulieu during his annual economic forecast at the ACG Denver 2014 Opening Luncheon. (Note: We've interviewed Alan several times over the years - be sure to check out his view of the future then and now.) ITR Economics focuses on the U.S. and European economy with offices here and there. Today Alan is talking about fiscal reality, a refreshing look at life as it is. "We started with the Affordable Health Care Act. You may be hearing the administration saying because of Obama Care they have slowed down the rate of rise in healthcare - you'll be seeing headlines about that in numerous sources. Keep in mind that it is a very negligible change and the numbers they're citing are before the healthcare act really came into being, 2014 is the real year of the healthcare act. So the slowdown really has to do with the softness we had in the economy in 2013 than it does with anything else, just a normal part of the economy. We think the healthcare act could be a headwind for consumers if the administration is right and millions of healthy young individuals go to the exchange." One of the country’s most informed economists, Alan Beaulieu, is a principal of ITR Economics™ where he serves as President. He leads the company’s European office and serves as chief economist for numerous U.S. and European trade associations. He is co-author of Make Your Move, a book on profiting in business cycle changes, and is a contributing editor for Industry Week magazine...Listen for more... RELATED LINKS: ITR Economics || ACG Denver || Presentation Slides || RM Corporate Growth Conference || Event Photos || M&A Channel || KEYWORDS: Alan Beaulieu, ITR Economics, Institute for Trend Research, Financial Trends, ACG Denver, Association for Corporate Growth, Trends, Economic Recovery, M&A, Entrepreneurs, Europe, China, Canada, Latin America > bytes=6262181 LISTEN TO: Alan Beaulieu, Principal, ITR Economics

03 December 2013

Federal grants are just getting more and more competitive1471_ 12/3/13 - We are speaking with Kate Tallman the Interim Associate Vice President of Technology Transfer Office, University of Colorado. There's been a lot happening and we're checking in with Kate for an update. Kate took on this role July 1st when Tom Smerdon moved to Texas. Tom had focused on how the TTO could serve the Universities desire to increase industry research funding and how we all work together on that. Now Kate's taken up that cause and there have been initiatives at the president's level as well as the Boulder Campus level to increase interactions with industry and so, Kate said, "Our office needs to adapt our practices to support that. It used to be when you thought of commercialization and industry at the University of Colorado, you thought of the Technology Transfer Office. But now, innovation, commercialization and industry relationships are the highest priorities at the highest levels. So things are really changing quickly and... listen for more... RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CU TTO || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Kate Tallman, Technology Transfer Office, University of Colorado, TTO, Industry Research Funding, Innovation, Commercialization, Industry Relationships, > bytes=9750468 LISTEN TO: Kate Tallman, Interim Associate Vice President, Technology Transfer Office, University of Colorado

23 November 2013

Innovation is stagnant now in the medical device arena1469_ 11/25/13 - We are talking with Mike Biselli, Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of MedPassage. At the very highest level, MedPassage is your 'Amazon.com' specifically built and engineered for the medical device implant industry. As you know, in our country right now, we are going through significant change in healthcare. With that said, Mike and his cofounder have spent 20+ years of direct experience in the medical device industry and they are leveraging that tribal knowledge into purposing and then creating a platform that will help disinter mediate and create more efficiencies within the implant space. Mike said, "As you know we need a reduced cost on all fronts within healthcare and it is our objective and our motive to see that through within the medical device implant space." MedPassage has noticed that innovation is stagnant now in the medical device arena... so we're going to have these technologies that we've been using for the last 10-20 years continue to dominate for the next 5-15 years if this market corrects. The point is why do we continue to march down the road where we have a sales distributor involved with these products that doctors know like the back of their hand? There's more... RELATED LINKS: MedPassage || Galvanize || Economy Builders || Blog || KEYWORDS: Mike Biselli, MedPassage, Chris Onan, Galvanize, Tech Ecosystem, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Medical Implant Devices Industry, healthcare, change, sales commissions, bytes=5811203 LISTEN TO: Mike Biselli, CoFounder/CMO, Med Passage

21 November 2013

We first came into this ecosystem back in 20121463_ 11/21/13 - We are talking with Chris Onan, Co-founder and Managing Director at Galvanize, and Mike Biselli, Chief Marketing Officer of MedPassage who has an office suite here at Galvanize, actually one of the first ten clients. Galvanize was built to be a tech ecosystem. So, that is a community of tech companies working in and around one another. We wanted to do that because there is a ton of great tech activity here in Denver. At least in this neck of the woods there wasn't any nexus for great tech companies. Mike Biselli said, "It's been an evolution for our organization, the benefits that Galvanize continually brings to us. When we first came into the ecosystem back in 2012, the first and foremost benefit for us was being around other like minded entrepreneurs. Seeing others going through the same pain problems that you are and not feeling like you're the only one going through those..." Mike said, "that was the first evolution followed by the second - being introduced by folks like Chris and the other founders here at Galvanize and other entrepreneurs... Going back to the capital, had we not been part of Galvanize, we wouldn't have secured part of our funding that just occurred recently. We literally received a six figure plus round of capital because we were based out of Galvanize", said Mike. This huge entrepreneur knowledge share is terrific... RELATED LINKS: Galvanize || Chris Onan || Venture Capital || Blog || KEYWORDS: Mike Biselli, MedPassage, Chris Onan, Galvanize, Tech Ecosystem, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Appian Venture Capital, David Cohen, Brad Feld, Funding, Talent > bytes=5811203 LISTEN TO: Chris Onan, & Mike Biselli, Galvanize

02 October 2013

Billions of dollars to help higher education1444_ 10/2/13 - Larry and Pat were invited to an up-scale event at the Innovation Pavilion by Christopher Pelley, CEO and Private Wealth Advisor of CIMCO Cares. After the eye-opening meeting, they had a chance to interview the keynote speaker, Karan Khemka, Partner, The Parthenon Group, which is a management consultancy - but a big part of their work is in the education sector. Education institutions, whether it's Harvard University or a private school, in the end they function like companies. Larry asked about the U.S. comparison to other countries. Karan tells us, in the U.S. 4% of college/university students are international students, compared to the U.K. which is at 17% and Australia at 28%. This begs the question, why would the U.S. say that this is the correct or acceptable penetration of international students when the U.K. and Australia have maintained very high quality higher education systems with far higher levels of international student penetration. If the U.S. were to double the international student population to 8% that would be an additional 700,000 students, and not all of these would be full fee paying, but let's say half-a-million were full fee paying, and they were coming in at $25-$30,000 a student - that is an incredible amount of revenue - billions of dollars to help balance the books of higher education. To put money into research, funding and scholarships. So there is an incredible opportunity to do good while serving international demand for one of the most desirable products the U.S. has. Your higher education is really the crown jewel amongst the products you can sell to the rest of the world. Listen for much more... RELATED LINKS: the Parthenon Group || Karan || Innovation Pavilion || CIMCO Cares || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Karan Khemka, The Parthenon Group, Roisin Pelley, Transnational Education,
Boston, London, Mumbai, San Francisco, Shanghai, Southeast Asia, Middle East, China, India, Australia, UK, Western Europe, Latin America, Christopher Pelley, CIMCO Cares, > bytes=6735310 LISTEN TO: Karan Khemka, Partner, The Parthenon Grp.

06 September 2013

Advantages to forming your own captive insurance company1431_ 9/6/13 -
We're talking with Howard Potter Managing Director at ST Consulting, LLC, a firm he set up in 1996 when he quit the practice of law and also the practice of CPA, and he began consulting, primarily in the area of financial and tax consulting. For the last 13 years Howard's been involved in micro captive insurance companies. The underlying concept is that all businesses have uninsured risks and these uninsured risks are frequently risks that you cannot buy coverage for in the conventional market. Examples might be product recalls, product liability, business interruption, loss of key supplier, loss of key vendor. Howard tells us they set up a captive insurance company for a surgical center up in the mountains. "One of the risks we covered was, loss of income because of reduction of Medicare reimbursements." Howard's challenge is to examine companies, identify these risks so he can actually come up with a premium. The company continues with traditional insurance, but now he pays additional premiums to himself / his insurance company. Last year their company, on a nationwide basis, did 102 of these transactions. The preceding year they did about 60, so this has really caught on. Larry asked if there were limits on the types of companies that could use this kind of insurance. The answer... Listen for the details... Howard is founder of the Cross Networking Event coming up on 9/26/13. The whole event is geared toward networking - no speakers, just great food and the people you are looking to connect with.
RELATED LINKS:
S T Consulting LLC ||
Howard Potter ||
ACG Denver Channel ||
Cross Networking Event ||
KEYWORDS: Howard Potter, S T Consulting, Captive Insurance Companies, Association of
Corporate Growth, Denver, ACG, FEI, Financial Executives International, Artex Risk Solutions, Arthur J Gallagher & Co,, bytes=4714060
LISTEN TO: Howard Potter, JD, MBA, CPA, S T Consulting

04 September 2013

Just 3 months into the life of the company and they got acquired1430_ 9/4/13 - [Part 2 of 3]
The conversation with David Cohen (TechStars Founder/CEO) continues with what is happening at TechStars today and in the foreseeable future. We start with a new product, the major company branded TechStars program. It is a TechStars program in every sense with the added benefit of also being around that corporation. So taking Nike as an example, if you're building something in health or digital sport, you get the TechStars investment, you get the TechStars Mentor Network, but you also get the hands-on help from Nike and the potential to do business with them, gain distribution or possible investment, and M&A if things are amazing - But there is no obligation to do any of those things with that corporate partner. It's really a magic combination. In the seven years of operation, TechStars has funded around 250 companies and about 120+ per year now, so it's gotten up to speed and they've seen their 24th acquisition. A company called Good April, was presenting at DemoDay made an announcement - at DemoDay... so just 3 months into the life of the company, said 'we've been acquired by Intuit. That was a first, seeing a company being acquired, a positive outcome like that before the program was even over. Looking at what's coming down the road... Listen now to part 2 of 3...
RELATED LINKS:
TechStars ||
2007 Interview David Cohen and David Brown ||
Foundry Group, Brad Feld ||
Entrepreneur Channel ||
GoodApril Sold ||
KEYWORDS: David Cohen, TechStars, Brad Feld, David Brown, Jared Polis, Investing, London, Startups, Nike+ Accelerator, The Kaplan EdTech Accelerator, The Microsoft Accelerator, and R/GA Connected Devices Accelerator, Entrepreneurship,
GoodApril, bytes=4802667
LISTEN TO: David Cohen, CEO, TechStars -[Part 2 of 3]